We are Robert and Jenn Meeropol, son and granddaughter of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. We are acutely aware of the political lessons to be drawn from the conviction and execution of the Rosenbergs (60 years ago today) at the height of the McCarthy period. The charge was conspiracy to commit espionage, but our family members were [...]

For the second week in a row I am compelled to write about someone represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) , and more particularly by my daughter, Rachel Meeropol, who is a senior staff attorney there. Daniel McGowan pleaded guilty to an environmentally motivated arson in 2006 and is now serving the last six months [...]

Guest post by Jenn Meeropol, Rosenberg Fund for Children Associate Director and granddaughter of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg At the Rosenberg Fund for Children we often talk about the families who receive our grants as part of the “RFC community.” I was reminded of the strength of the connections and compassion within this community this week as [...]

Last Friday evening my wife and I heard Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org*, speak at Amherst College. Bill is probably the leading environmental activist in the country. The 650 people who jammed the original lecture hall, and the 300 more who flooded the video-fed, auxiliary venue, were a testament to his drawing power and the [...]

We, who have just endured four of the warmest weeks the eastern two-thirds of the United States has experienced since we started keeping records, have been told repeatedly by media pundits that “you can’t attribute this particular spell of weather to global warming.” This statement, while true in a narrow sense, is false in a broader [...]

Is Justice Possible? Is it possible for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), his co-defendants and the victims of their alleged crimes to receive justice? Can their torture and harsh conditions of confinement be ignored at the defendants’ trial? The Obama administration answers both questions affirmatively. The chief prosecutor at the “Military Commission” hearing stated , “The remedy for torture [...]

This week’s deluge of coverage concerning the constitutionality of the 2010 health care law has overshadowed a case heard last week that is, perhaps, even more important to the long-term vigor of our democracy. On March 21st the Court heard oral argument on Steven Howards’ suit against the Secret Service agents who arrested him after [...]

Last week I read that an ardent member of the Occupy Los Angeles movement has been arrested and charged with lynching.  You might think the protester, Sergio Ballesteros, attacked and hanged someone.  After all, California’s anti-lynching law was designed to protect minority defendants in police custody from vigilante lynch-mobs.  But no, the police have used the [...]

I have no intention of voting for Obama in November.  Based on what I’ve learned about environmental sustainability and the military industrial complex, as well as a series of discussions I’ve had with my wife, Elli, about this over the last year, I’ve come to understand that: 1.  We are careening towards a series of [...]

On December 9th, Mumia Abu-Jamal, arguably the world’s most famous death row prisoner, will have been incarcerated for 30 years. As I’ve written here before, I’ve read the entire transcript of Mumia’s trial, and am convinced that it was unfair and that Mumia should be freed. I feel well qualified to make this determination because [...]

Ross Douthat concluded his Op Ed piece about Troy Davis’s execution in The New York Times on September 24, 2011 as follows:

Abolishing capital punishment in a kind of despair over its fallibility would … tell the public that our laws and courts and juries are fundamentally incapable of delivering what most Americans consider genuine justice. It could [...]

Tim DeChristopher grew up in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia. As a child he watched his mother unsuccessfully fight corporate outlaw Massey Energy’s destruction of his magnificent surroundings, and as a young man became an environmental activist. At age 27, during the closing days of the Bush Administration, DeChristopher submitted bids at a Bureau [...]